There are, of course, problems with trailers beyond simply telling too much story. Those who make them say the problem isn't so much their product as the presentation of the product. Trailers aren't too long and obvious, they say, there are just too **** many of them shown before every movie.

"The only time you really know if something works is when you're shown that trailer in the real environment, where you've paid your money to see a movie--and then you get six trailers," says Mesa.

"Sometimes they'll send people out to theaters to see how your trailer is playing. It is very tough to gauge how the trailer is playing in the real environment, because it's really hard to remember which trailers you saw. You can probably remember two or three of them, but not all of them."

Theater chains say they program a different "preshow" for various areas of the country, but the program generally stays in the 10- to 15-minute range--including the pitch for the refreshment stand, the reminder to the person sitting next to you to stop talking and the theater chain's "signature card," which can run anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute. If the theater is asking for money for a charity, that enters into the preshow, too.

The rest is trailers--often as many as six, very rarely as few as three. And if you ask audience members leaving the theater which trailers they saw two and a half hours ago, you'll be lucky to get two accurate answers. And which ones did they like? Maybe they'll remember one.

Do theater owners want to show fewer trailers per movie? "We'd like to," admits one chain executive, who asked not to be identified. "But the studios all want their trailers up there, and it's part of the experience for the audience, and I think they'd miss them if they weren't there."

There are, of course, problems with trailers beyond simply telling too much story. Those who make them say the problem isn't so much their product as the presentation of the product. Trailers aren't too long and obvious, they say, there are just too **** many of them shown before every movie.

"The only time you really know if something works is when you're shown that trailer in the real environment, where you've paid your money to see a movie--and then you get six trailers," says Mesa.

"Sometimes they'll send people out to theaters to see how your trailer is playing. It is very tough to gauge how the trailer is playing in the real environment, because it's really hard to remember which trailers you saw. You can probably remember two or three of them, but not all of them."

Theater chains say they program a different "preshow" for various areas of the country, but the program generally stays in the 10- to 15-minute range--including the pitch for the refreshment stand, the reminder to the person sitting next to you to stop talking and the theater chain's "signature card," which can run anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute. If the theater is asking for money for a charity, that enters into the preshow, too.

The rest is trailers--often as many as six, very rarely as few as three. And if you ask audience members leaving the theater which trailers they saw two and a half hours ago, you'll be lucky to get two accurate answers. And which ones did they like? Maybe they'll remember one.

Do theater owners want to show fewer trailers per movie? "We'd like to," admits one chain executive, who asked not to be identified. "But the studios all want their trailers up there, and it's part of the experience for the audience, and I think they'd miss them if they weren't there."